The DOJ is considering taking legal action against schools who support affirmative action

The Department of Justice is squaring up to take on a major policy – affirmative action.

The New York Timesreports that the Attorney General Sessions-led department is looking into how colleges may be discriminating against white students by allegedly giving preference to students of color.

A memo obtained by the Times states that Sessions if looking for attorneys to join “investigations and possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions.”

For those unaware, affirmative action is a policy in which employers and institutions work to increase the diversity among their staff to combat the disproportionate number of white representation in them.

Over the years, many detractors of affirmative action have spread the rumor that it takes away from white people’s opportunities and isn’t needed. You don’t have to look far to find someone who thinks so, the current attorney general is at the very top of that list.

“The civil rights laws were deliberately written to protect everyone from discrimination, and it is frequently the case that not only are whites discriminated against now but frequently Asian Americans are as well,” said head of the Center for Equal Opportunity, Roger Clegg. Clegg also worked for the civil rights divisions under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush.

In Clegg’s hopes, the immediate positive of abolishing affirmative action would be decreased dropout rates. So, in other words, he’d rather colleges be mostly white instead of diverse and trying to find out exactly why the retention of students of color is so low across the board.

“This is deeply disturbing,” said Kristen Clarke, the president of the liberal Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “It would be a dog whistle that could invite a lot of chaos and unnecessarily create hysteria among colleges and universities who may fear that the government may come down on them for their efforts to maintain diversity on their campuses.”

The DOJ is currently only looking into whether or not legal action should be taken. But don’t be surprised if they decide to make that step and stir up all sorts of problems no one needs.

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Keith Reid-Cleveland is a proud product of Chicago’s Southside and the Missouri School of Journalism. The Black Youth Project News Editor has written about politics, race and entertainment for multiple publications, such as Uproxx, The Undefeated, Black Nerd Problems, Comic Book Resources and more.